Apex Igbo socio-cultural organisation, Ohanaeze Ndigbo Worldwide has urged the people of the Southeast to resist the sit-at-home order by an anti-Igbo group during the forthcoming elections.
Also traditional rulers in Southeast under the auspices of the Southeast Council of Traditional Rulers urged their subjects and all residents of the Southeast to ignore any sit-at-home order and massively go out to vote for their preferred candidates.
The groups made the calls in separate communiqué at the weekend in Enugu, the Enugu State capital.
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While Ohanaeze’s communiqué was signed by its National Publicity Secretary, Alex Ogbonnia, at the end of an emergency meeting of the group’s National Executive Committee presided over by the Secretary General of the group, Amb. Okey Emuchay on Friday in Enugu, the monarchs’ communiqué issued on Saturday at the end of the first 2023 Executive Committee Meeting of the Southeast Council of Traditional Rulers held in the Old Eastern Nigeria House of Chiefs in Enugu on Feb. 15.
According to Ohanaeze, the most worrisome among the issues elaborated on was the sit-at-home and total lockdown order to the Igbo by one Simon Ekpa, who is based in Finland.
Ogbonnia said: “Ohanaeze Ndigbo expresses shock and doubt that a true Igbo would unconscionably embark on a disingenuous duplicitous adventure aimed at denigrating, disenfranchising and decimating his people.
“The most disturbing is that the unscrupulous sit-at-home and total lockdown order by Ekpa fall within the Nigerian general election”
Ohanaeze expressed concern that while the Media and Publicity Secretary of IPOB, Emma Powerful, had dissociated IPOB from any sit-at-home in the South-East during the election period.
“We are urging residents to disregard the rumoured order making the rounds by the Simon Ekpa” and that “IPOB is only interested in the unconditional release of Mazi Nnamdi Kanu”.
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“The autopilot ignores the necessary landing permit by his people and Ohanaeze, therefore, urges the residents in Igboland to ignore the sit at home in its entirety,” Ogbonnia said.
Speaking further, the apex Igbo group commended “the interventions with the Finnish Ambassador to Nigeria, Leena Pylvanainen by Chief Geoffrey Onyeama, the Minister of Foreign Affairs; the Inspector-General of Police (IGP), Usman Baba, the Chief of Defence Staff, General Lucky Irabor, Igbo Union in Finland, the general public especially the Youths and the reassurances of President Muhammadu Buhari with respect to security and a free and fair election in 2023.”
The Royal Fathers on their own called on the people of the Southeast to go out en masse to vote for their preferred candidates during the elections and to ignore any order for sit-at-home.
The council appealed to the security agencies to create a conducive and safe environment for the General Elections; while calling on the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) to act professionally and patriotically.